The Albanese Government spent this week trying desperately to convince Senate crossbenchers to support their package of industrial relations reform, as the contentious bill passed the lower house yesterday.

Meanwhile, ministers in the Senate were facing opposition and crossbench senators in budget estimates – some holding the government’s line for the first time in nearly a decade, and others for the very first time.

With only one sitting fortnight before Parliament rises for the year, and a heavy legislative agenda, the government wants to clear as many election commitments as possible off their books before Christmas.

Here are the week’s major events.

Government’s IR bill comes under fire

Starting the week with a major concession on their IR bill on Sunday, the government came under increasingly intense scrutiny during the week as key crossbenchers in the Senate refused to rubber stamp Labor’s reform package.

The government needs the support of the Greens plus one additional crossbencher to pass legislation in the senate, and newbie senator David Pocock and Tasmania’s Jacqui Lambie have raised serious issues with the bill.

Both are telling the government the bill – which includes major structural changes to Australia’s IR laws – should not be rushed through this year, and have urged the contentious multi-employer bargaining provisions be removed from the current bill and dealt with later.

The House of Representatives – where the government enjoys a majority – passed the bill yesterday, but it’s looking unlikely to pass the senate in it’s current form.
 

Opposition doubling down on energy price war 

The Coalition – realising the government is vulnerable to attacks on energy policy given skyrocketing bills and a broken election commitment – has spent another week in question time hammering their opponents over their plans to reduce cost of living pressures.

Shadow minister after shadow minister asked the PM and his frontbench about rising costs for families and small businesses, with the government blaming the Coalition’s inaction on energy policy over nine years for their inherited crisis.
 

Tackling the regional healthcare crisis

On Thursday, the government introduced legislation that proposes to wipe the HELP debt of doctors or nurse practitioners who choose to work in rural and remote locations of Australia.

Working in a remote or very remote town for half the time period of the length of their course would see the debt completely wiped, as would a stint in a rural town for the whole time period equal to the length of their course.

The government expects it to add up to 850 doctors and nurse practitioners to the rural and remote health workforce a year.
 

In case you missed it…

It’s not often Greens and Coalition senators agree, but in unusual scenes in senate estimates this week, both came together to condemn the behaviour of Labor senator Glenn Sterle.

Sterle, who chairs the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee, lost his cool at Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie during a heated exchange – declaring she “was like a naughty little girl”. 

The senator initially refused to withdraw the comment, when asked by Greens and Coalition senators on the committee, but was later forced to apologise.

Agriculture Minister Murray Watt, who was representing the government at the table, later said it was “completely unacceptable”.